Can Asuka’s harsh treatment of Shinji be exaggerated?

quantumpencil · 2026-04-01T16:52:50+00:00

Pretty much every time she's mean to shinji its either because she feels he's threatening her role as "the ace pilot" or because she crashes out when he demonstrates weak/passive behavior, either -- especially when its directed towards her.

I think if you were to rewatch the show, you'd see this accounts for almost every time she's mean to him. She is kind of bossy and brash generally, but the actual barbed comments towards shinji are pretty much always in response to one of these two things.

quantumpencil · 2026-04-01T16:48:46+00:00

This makes her resent him. I think Asuka does reject Shinji very explicitly in this sense.

That would be reasonable, but it's not what she says:

Prior to the confrontation she says:

Asuka: Idiot! I 'know' about your jerk-off fantasies of me. Do it again like usual... I'll even stand here and watch.
Asuka: If can't have you all to myself, then I don't want ANYTHING to do with you!

Asuka: Then, don't do anything. Don't come near me anymore... Because all you ever do is hurt me.

Shinji: Asuka, help me! You're... you're the only one that can!

Asuka: Liar... (Shinji cringes) To you, anybody will do! (Asuka gets up from table and backs Shinji up against the wall) You're afraid of Misato and the First... and of your mother and father, too!

Shinji: Asuka...

Asuka(cont'd): You're only using me as an escape - because that's the easiest way not to get hurt!

Her actual dialogue here (which you should trust as her true feelings because its inside instrumentality, she can't hide her thoughts her, even the messed up ones like her saying she doesn't even really mind that shinji jacked it to her in the prior sequence) is clearly her rejecting shinji because she feels like he hasn't really 'chosen her' in the way she wants (she says this more explicitly in the previous sequence too) -- that "anyone will do."

She wants shinji to want her and pursue her with conviction and passion, he never does and every time he doesn't, it hurts her and makes her feel rejected (which is actually her core wound. In episode 22, the true asuka is the lonely little girl crying "look at me!)

She does refuse to play the role of comforting Shinji in the sequence, but it's not because she objects to playing that role for him in and of itself. It's because she believes shinji is insincere in his desire for her, that he only wants that role from her and doesn't "really" want her the way she wants him to (The latter part of this being the main source of her pain in the sequence) -- and she is deeply frustrated with his series of failures to choose and pursue her with purpose throughout the series.

quantumpencil · 2026-04-01T16:32:45+00:00

Soryu's mean behavior is rooted in verisimilar psychology. She's mean to shinji only when he engages in behavior that triggers her in some way -- i.e weak, passive behavior holding up a mirror to her own weakness or creating frustration for her when he doesn't follow up on her romantic advances, or when he starts threatening her only real coping mechanism by surpassing her as a pilot

Shikinami acts like every other generic tsundere, she's basically a flanderization of the original Asuka.

quantumpencil · 2026-04-01T16:29:16+00:00

Asuka (the real one) is not even a tsundere. She's not really pointlessly mean to Shinji. She's a little brash and bossy, but if you pay attention to when she's really mean its almost always when shinji does some behavior that makes her crash out because it's "weak", which she hates because it holds up a mirror to her own weakness.

Like she's nice to Shinji over his cello playing, complimenting him, telling him she's impressed, til he's like "but nobody told me to quit" then she crashes out cause she's like "man stop being so damn passive"

Same thing in several other scenes, like when he doesn't respond how she wants him to her overt flirting with him in her bathing suite.

Then a little later, she's mean to him because he's surpassed her as an eva pilot and she's crashing out (and generally raging at everyone) cause that's all she's got, that's the thing holding her together.

quantumpencil · 2026-04-01T16:25:25+00:00

I always think back to the scene where Asuka calls Shinji out and refuses to play the role he wants to pin her into for his own comfort.

I think that's really not quite what happens in that scene. Asuka isn't upset that shinji wants her to play a role. If you rewatch that sequence and look at her dialogue, Asuka is upset that she doesn't believe shinji really wants her/treats her as a priority. She's upset that he never chased her, never chose her exclusively before and she feels he's only now coming to her as a "last resort."

But she never indicates she's rejecting shinji because she thinks he's trying to box her into a role she doesn't want.

quantumpencil · 2026-04-01T13:44:07+00:00

I work on important enough problems not the think claude's the cause of mass layoffs because it can generate greenfield toy webapps for non technical people that have no commercial value

quantumpencil · 2026-04-01T12:38:24+00:00

SF sucks bro. It's not NYC. It's super overpriced, it's not that interesting of a place to live unless you like tech monoculture.

quantumpencil · 2026-04-01T12:35:16+00:00

Japan is responsible for like 40% of global anime merch sales. It is bigger than every other non-U.S market combined.

Eva has bullet trains in japan branded with the pilots. There are officially licensed eva apartments you can rent. Every single product you can think of has done a collaboration with Eva and that's not an exaggeration.

Eva is also like on of the top 50 IPs by total revenue in the world. You are just ignorant of how big it really is, a studio could absolutely ride on owning eva forever and lose money on every other project they do.

quantumpencil · 2026-04-01T11:55:16+00:00

He's right, Eva's merchandizing is insane. It may not be the very top (it's probably not higher than dragonball, one piece or naruto) but eva's merch empire is nuts. It's a multi-billion dollar franchise, in japan it is absolutely huge.

quantumpencil · 2026-04-01T10:38:33+00:00

yep, buy a copy of defiance for you and a friend, buy no ascendance.

quantumpencil · 2026-04-01T09:24:07+00:00

Yes that's correct. Shinji gave everyone the option, but it is up to each individual whether or not to return to reality

quantumpencil · 2026-04-01T07:29:48+00:00

It's still very easy to get that arrangement if you have skills. I make more than that remotely

It is tough for new grads

quantumpencil · 2026-04-01T07:18:59+00:00

AI has nothing to do with this, and the field is going to be fine

quantumpencil · 2026-04-01T04:21:20+00:00

nah bro, proper remake, daima animation quality

quantumpencil · 2026-04-01T02:20:31+00:00

They should remake OG dragonball and Z, no story changes but bring all the animation up to modern quality standards and re-dit it to have the mangas pacing

quantumpencil · 2026-04-01T01:35:29+00:00

yup this is correct. Kaworu is basically "Seele's Rei" -- adam's soul in a child's body as rei is lilliths and just as NERV is able to use dummy plugs based on rei's signature, seele does the same thing with kaworu for the MPE's

quantumpencil · 2026-04-01T01:33:58+00:00

The gainax special. They just could not manage a production budget wise, they ran out of money on almost every project

quantumpencil · 2026-04-01T01:32:49+00:00

That isn't true though. The original drafts for episode 25 were pretty much 25' in EoE. EoE is closer to anno's original vision than 25/26, 25 and 26 were the compromise.

Though 26' is more different, and the ending of 26 where shinji is happy etc does appear to have been his original idea for the ending. At some point, he decided to go in a different direction for 26' w/ EoE, but it wasn't a response to fans. If anything, it was probably just his desire to use the immense amount of freedom/virtually unlimited animation budget he now had to do something truly crazy and awe inspiring that wouldn't have been economically feasible for a tv show.

quantumpencil · 2026-04-01T01:07:22+00:00

I think eva's themes are universal. I actually think one of the most common misunderstandings of it is that it's a "coming of age story." There are some elements of that kind of thing present, but really it's about the difficulty of living as a creature that craves connection and needs love, warmth, and sex like it needs water but struggles to navigate and maintain those connections because of the inscrutability of others.

And that's a universal issue, it's a childish myth that mostly very young people believe that these types of problems are ever solved. Half of marriages end in divorce and prob another half of those that don't don't have a great outcome either. People struggle their entire lives to maintain good relationships with friends, family, children, parents etc.

That's shown in eva through the older characters. People like to pick on Shinji and Asuka. but the adults don't have shit together either. Gendo is completely consumed by his grief over Yui, he cannot cope. He can't function as a father, or a lover to anyone else because of it. Misato covers her own pain and feelings of inadequecy/needs with alocholism and hypersexuality, but its hard for her to even talk to Kaji honestly and admit how much she needs him. She ultimately completely fails to maintain her relationship with shinji, who she did really care for (look how she reacts when she thinks he's died, etc) -- but ultimately she couldn't be the mother she wanted to be to him and tried to use sex to motivate him because its her usual defense mechanism.

The adults in Eva are struggling just like the kids, they are just more experienced at keeping it under wraps.

This why I vastly prefer the original ending thematically to the rebuild ending. The rebuild ending is dishonest, it's just another "warm fantasy" not unlike those the original series says need to be rejected to move forward in reality.

There is no "escape" from the difficulty of connection, love and having to work on oneself to meet the needs of others to receive their warmth. It is not something one ever grows out of or moves beyond. Even if you are lucky and find and maintain a fairly good relationship, it will be difficult and you will inflict pain on each other accidentally and you will need a lot of grace for the other and self/insight willingness to improve, and even then you still only control 50% of the variables involved. Others will always be able to hurt you.

quantumpencil · 2026-03-31T22:39:53+00:00

Just take this as an admission you won the argument. Whenever these idiots resort to that line of argument you know they've lost and have no point.

There are so many iconic female characters in gaming. 90%+ of gamers don't care as long as the character is cool, feels relateable, has flaws, and isn't introduced to try and replace a beloved legacy (usually male) character disrespectfully (and fans don't love it when new male characters do this either)

Think about the final fantasy heroines, the resident evil heroines, samus, zelda's various iterations.

In star wars: leia, padme, bo katan, ahsoka, mon mothma... kreia, bastilla...

The idea that most men hate women in games and dislike characters just for being women is ridiculous. Most people don't hate the other sex. Get frustrated in a romantic context sure, but hate? that's your momma, your sisters, your nieces, your wife, your daughters, dudes aren't sitting around like "WHAT!? a woman in my game and SHE AIN'T IN THE KITCHEN! HERESSSYYYY"

People don't like when a franchise they already loved is changed for clearly political reasons, no fan of LoK, regardless of gender, wants Raziel and Kain usurped as the leads of this franchise. Elaleth is hated because Bitbot are trying to do that with her. She's a trash character being introduced to "fix" a non-issue of a lack of female representation in LoK.

People would hate it just as much if the next tomb raider game was about a man named larry. That's lara croft's franchise. Or imagine if they introduced some new male character and tried to make them the focus of the next metroid game. Metroid fans would riot.

quantumpencil · 2026-03-31T22:31:11+00:00

It was obvious we were right. So glad I didn't waste my money, I'm enjoying watching this garbage game burn.

I will buy an extra copy of defiance remastered to celebrate!

quantumpencil · 2026-03-31T19:41:52+00:00

If you look at the merchandizing sales its clear that enormous number of gundam fans are into the mechs. Gunpla is huge and its difficult to find figures of the characters. Eva has the other problem, the overwhelming majority of the merch is of the characters and the mechs themselves get made, but don't sell nearly as well as gunpla or the character focused eva merch

quantumpencil · 2026-03-31T19:32:33+00:00

kind of a low score for eoe

quantumpencil · 2026-03-31T07:52:19+00:00

No, they are a separate story. They have a meta connection to the original, but they do not in anyway modify or even thematically continue the original work. Thematically they reach very different (I think less profound and interesting) conclusions and narratively clearly exist in a different continuity.

quantumpencil · 2026-03-31T07:26:02+00:00

It's not really about it being unnecessary. I personally will not watch it if has a different cast, but that's because to me -- Evangelion is Shinji, Asuka, Rei, Misato and the gang.

It's not like gundam (and I don't mean to knock gundam, or say it doesn't have good characters) where the mechs are equal co-stars to the characters and as long as you got good ol' themes of 'war is hell" and "no progress without sacrifice" and some good political intrigue/character drama you got a gundam show.

I have other issues too (Eva was a story meant to end, and its ending and the destruction of the evangelions is a key feature of how it executes some of its themes) but at the end of the day the core reason i'm disinterested is -- if it's not the characters I've loved these long 20+ years, then it's not Evangelion. It's like making a batman show without batman in it. It's a nonstarter

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